2018- Week 43(Oct 22- Oct 28)

Ashtyn got really sick the beginning of the week and missed her first choir concert of the year. She ended up getting very dehydrated so they put her on Zofran which is an anti-nausea medicine they give to chemo patients. They thought this would be better than taking her to get an IV because often times you pick up worse germs in an ER this time of year. That did the trick and she was feeling much better by Friday.

My friend Marni and I took Ashtyn and her daughter Rylee, who is one of Ashtyn's best friends to do a college tour of UVU. This is her first choice of schools because it has a great forensic program which is what she wants to study. I was very impressed. It has so many resources to help students. Every building is connected underground and it forms a large city or airport like maze. They really had everything there- A doctors office, post office, police station, library, stores, restaurants, etc. The carpet changes from building to building so you know you have entered a new zone. It's an open enrollment school so you don't have to worry about getting accepted. She is also considering Weber State, which also has a good forensic program.

 They have an icredible stained glass exhibit hall that is called Roots of Knowledge. It showcases all the places knowledge comes from.

Friday night was our Ward Fall Festival. With great coaxing I convinced Jeff to dress up with me. He went as Burt and I went as Mary Poppins. Ashtyn went as Belle in her fancy yellow dress and her friend Bev went as Belle before she meets the beast. Ethan dressed up like a detective.

I didn't get a picture of them. We had a soup pot luck. A few days before the RS sent out an email asking for more soup and boy did we get more. There were something like 23 or so crock pots total so we had an abundance. I led the trick or treating parade for the Primary kids. Jeff ran a nerf gun game with the Teachers Quorum. It was a fun night. 

Whitney got to go with her friend Macy's family up to Park City for the weekend. Some of their other friends came too. They had a fun time hanging out together.

Saturday morning was the Primary Program Practice. This went well. We had several kids and teachers not be able to make it but we were still able to run through the whole thing at least once and the kids of course loved the pizza party afterwards!

Ethan had all of his friends over for a late night party. I love that he has a great group of friends. They have been going to the temple once a week for several months now. They hang out most weekends and are such good kids. I'm glad we got to host for once. Our microwave was broken so I had to go make popcorn at the neighbors so they'd have a snack and we also broke out the Halloween candy I bought to replace what we gave out at the ward party.

Sunday was our Primary Program. I can never fully enjoy these until after they are over. I sit there so so nervous that something will go wrong or that we will go over time. This year I had 8 kids and two teachers not be able to make it that day. That always causes me so much stress, but it always ends up fine. The kids were darling. I bawled through and could barely sing every song. We ended exactly at 12:10 so it was perfect. I was so proud of all the kids. I adore each one of them and they worked so hard to memorize their parts. This year we also had the teachers go over them in class so they could be extra prepared. We let them watch videos off the Mormon Channel in sharing time for a break. The JR kids watched On in a Million videos from the Friend and that only kept them entertained for part of the time so the rest of the time we sang I Am a Child of God and talked about what each phrase meant. The SR kids I showed Mormon Message Video's. I showed them all my favorites including the one about Stephanie Nielson. They sat so quietly when they showed her burned face and I think it really touche the kids and made them realize what some people have to go through. We gave the teachers giant Kit Kat's as a thank you. 

After church Whitney received her patriarchal blessing. She has been wanting to get this for several months. The first time she got her recommend she waited too long to call the patriarch and the recommend expired. The second time he called her to schedule it which was so thoughtful. It was beautiful. I always love to hear about my girls through Heavenly Father's eyes. It answered questions I had about her life and I know it gave her a lot to think about and inspired her.
It was a beautiful and full day.

2018- Week 42(Oct 15- Oct 21)

For DUP this month we took a field trip to the Sorenson Home Museum. It's located in Draper. The Sorensens, who were some of the first pioneers in Draper, used to host social gatherings, church meetings and, occasionally, LDS Church leaders in their home. Martina Thompson Sorensen immigrated to the United States from Denmark with her family. Her parents were converts to the LDS Church and sought to join other Saints living in the Salt Lake Valley. The Thompsons crossed the Plains in 1861 when Martina was only 2 years old. They lived in the Bear River area for a while and eventually moved to Draper. Martina met her husband, Peter Sorensen, another LDS convert from Denmark, after moving to the city, and the two were married in 1880. By 1882, they moved into a one-bedroom adobe house. As their family grew, more rooms were eventually added on until the home reached its present size. The home was beautiful. It even had a real working victrola. We got to eat lunch in the kitchen. I am grateful that history like this has been preserved. 

This weekend was Fall Break but instead of having fun the girls had to have their wisdom teeth removed. We didn't want them to miss school so this long weekend was the perfect time. We had it done by Dr. Judd Partridge of Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery of Utah. We had to be at their Cottonwood Heights location at 8:40 AM. Sharon came with me to help. They let me go back with them to get prepped and then I had to leave and wait in the waiting room. They did Ashtyn first and then Whitney. The whole thing from start to finish was only about an hour and a half. After they are done they take them to a small recovery room. Ashtyn must have reminded me to film her about 100 times because she had seen other friends perform some pretty funny antics when they were coming out of anesthesia. She did not dissapoint and told us a lot of funny things. She sang songs, asked for french fries, asked to see Whitney, asked to take the cozy blanket she had on home, shivered with her teeth full on chattering telling me she was freezing, told us she had ants in her pants(they said they would feel like that from the steroid they give them). Poor Whitney on the other hand just cried. Ashtyn was pretty loud and the nurse kept telling her to be quiet. On the way home Sharon filmed them in the car having a conversation. Whitney was very concerned that she would no longer be smart with out her wisdom teeth. She also wondered if she had any friends any more. Ashtyn told her that she was her best friend. They were definitely out of it. One day maybe they will let me post the videos on here. They swelled up pretty good after the first day but started to feel better by the third day. They had to eat nothing but soft foods and they got sick of it pretty quick. They mostly just layed around and rested and were so bored. Nana and Papa brought them a shake and our neighbor Melissa and Chailyn brought Jamba Juice. Ashtyn's friend Rylee also came over and brought ice cream. Glad to have this out of the way.

2018- Week 41(Oct 8- Oct 14)

A few of our neighborhood kids were in the Riverton Arts Council production of The Wizard of Oz so we went to see it. Whitney had to work so Liz came with us. It was very good. Our friend Benzley was Dorothy. She was amazing. Her voice is beautiful. She has had some huge health challenges the last few years and at one point she was hospitalized- if you recall we went to see her up at Primary Children's. Now she is better and thriving and we were so glad we got to see her shine. We loved it.

Ashytn has the opportunity to go to New York with her choir this year. It is going to be very expensive so to offset the costs they sold cookie dough tubs. She ended up selling almost $1000 worth so she earned almost $500. That will really help. We have the best family, friends and neighbors that all supported her. This week the dough came in so we have been delivering it.

Ashtyn got her answer to Bingham Ball

The cub scouts held their Space Derby this week and I helped. I really love the cub scouts. They are all so cute. It was fun to see their handy work.

The winners- James, Alex and Easton

Ethan participated in Reality Town this week. Both the girls got to do this in 9th grade too and I helped both times so I had to help with Ethan too. He was a computer engineer and he made over $5000 a month. I worked at the housing booth selling homes and helping the kids decide whether to rent or buy and how much they could afford. There was one option to live in your parents basement but I only let them choose this if they were really destitute or they had a great sob story. One boy who was a surgeon told me that he was living there to help his parents who were aging and needed lots of help so I let him do it. They had to pay bills and buy groceries and pay for child care, etc. Your job choices were based on your GPA so Ethan got to pick anything he wanted.

Saturday was our much anticipated hike to the Y. We have been trying to work around work and church commitments and had a date arranged but then had to move it because Whitney had to work and I really wanted it to be our whole family because we don't know how many more times we will get to do it before college, missions and marriages start to happen for us. It turned out to be the perfect day. The weather was awesome. The hike I'll admit seemed way steeper to me this year and took me and Whitney forever to complete but we did it and the view from the top is never disappointing. The way down was torture on my knee and hips this time. 40 really is kicking my butt. We invited a lot of our family to come but none of them could make it so it was just us which I love. Afterwards we went to the park and had lunch and then instead of playing baseball we played football and Jeff through the ball around with Ethan and Ashtyn. Whitney fell asleep in the sunshine and I could barely move. He told them if they could catch a ball that he through strait up then they could win money. He gave them ten tries and each time they missed it went down a dollar. Then at the end he gave them a change to win $20. Ethan earned $2 but traded it in to win the $20 and missed. Ashtyn missed all of hers even though she had caught a few before when they were practicing. After that we went to the bookstore and wandered around and then stopped and got ice cream but Jeff and Ethan didn't want any so me and the girls grabbed ours to go. I tried the new fluffernutter flavor with marshmallows and nutter butter cookies and peanut butter swirls. It was great. It was such a fun day.

That night Ashtyn got invited to another one of the Reid's dinner mystery parties. This time she was assigned to play Marcus- the male stripper who was dating Lilith. I was afraid to even google search a costume for that so I left it up to her. What she came up with was brilliant and frankly disturbing ha ha. She had a great time. We really need to do this with adults sometime.

On Sunday we took Malia her cookie dough and stayed for dessert. They have the cutest tradition of making popcorn every Sunday so Scott made us cinnamon.sugar corn. It was yummy then we also had Oreo's and ice cream. We got to hang out with them for a while. Ashtyn helped Ruby make a haunted house and Ethan played Battle Ship with Corban. We love chatting with them and Scott always makes everyone laugh. We love that they are back in Utah so we can hang out more.